UNDERESTIMATING OTHERS

Life is about accepting unpleasant experiences with grace. Theodore Roosevelt expressed this truth in these words: “The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer.”

The fact is that no one lives in this world alone; countless others share the same opportunity of life. According to God’s plan, every person is provided with the means to live—each in a different way. One receives one kind of provision, another receives something else. In such a situation, if a person begins to look down on others, he loses the ability to see reality clearly. He can form a correct opinion neither about himself nor about others.

The greatest wrong committed in human history is the failure to acknowledge truth. In every age, righteous individuals have risen with a message of truth, calling people toward what is right. Yet time and again, most of their listeners ignored them. The main reason was that they regarded those truthful people as insignificant—simply because they lacked worldly grandeur or were not seated on thrones of power. They said, “Why should we humble ourselves before such ordinary men?”

The same principle applies to national behaviour. If we consider another nation inferior, our entire perspective becomes distorted. We begin to see its virtues as flaws, misjudge its strength, and end up clashing with it unnecessarily, when wisdom would have required restraint.

To underestimate others is, in the end, to underestimate oneself. The final outcome of belittling others is that one becomes small and insignificant in others’ eyes.